Rich Biedrzycki of Dreamland Comics in Schaumburg, Illinois saw comments by Gail Burt of Metropolis Comics (see 'Gail Burt of Metropolis Comics on Ordering Strategies') and Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics (see 'Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose on Ordering Strategies') on his reorder strategy and responds:

I would like to respond to Gail and Ilan's comments on my re-order stratagy.  I am not saying that I re-order EVERY title that sells out, but I do reorder at least a few copies of books that are continuing to sell long after a few weeks on the shelf, and, believe it or not, there are many books beside Amazing Spider-Man and Batman that do that.  I do re-order copies of at least 90% of the books we carry if they sell out, and we carry full lines of most every publisher's books, including most independents.  We track every single book we sell, and it would really surprise these people what the sales of a book are after 3-4 weeks on the rack.  A lot of times we sell more copies in weeks 5+ then on the second week.  Their assertion that a comic issues shelf life is only 7-10 days is WAY off base.  We sell issues off the rack at cover price (I do not put these in the back issue bins for at least 6 months) sometimes for months.  We have many people come in every week and buy the last 4-5 issues of a series.  Why?  Because most retailers like Gail or Ilan don't bother to stock these books after 7-10 days.

I am not advocating buying 15-20 copies of every title to save as back issues, as that would be financial suicide for most comic retailers. But we are doing a disservice to our customers by treating a product like it is stale after a week.  I was not trying to compare comics to bread and eggs just compare the INDUSTRIES and the way they treat their products.  There is no other industry in this country that treats their product line like we do (not including the Sport Card industry which we are part of too and is even worse with their products). And why would you WANT to do a 'Happy Dance' when an issue sold out- you just lost any chance of making more money off that issue forever.